The Ogre Downstairs | A Review

This illustrated picture book, The Ogre Downstairs, sets out to honor the countless Righteous Among the Nations whose names history forgot. It tells the story of Sarah and her little sister, swept into the Holocaust. When the Nazis kill their parents, the girls survive because of the building's caretaker—a man who risks everything to save them, despite the fear Sarah has always felt toward him because of how he looks. This book does not speak of disability, but it speaks to something all of us who are fragile, and all who love fragile people, know far too well: rejection born from an appearance deemed unacceptable. Yet salvation arrives when we—all of us—learn to see reality with eyes alive, awake, and full of love.